₦airaland Forum

U wanna bet on it?

Brazil has said it plans to cancel or restructure $900m worth of debt in 12 African countries, as part of a broader strategy to boost ties with the continent.

Brazilian officials said on Saturday that President Dilma Rousseff, visiting Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to mark the African Union's 50th anniversary, was set to announce a new development agency alongside the cancellation that will offer assistance to African countries.

"The idea of having Africa as a special relationship for Brazil is strategic for Brazil's foreign policy," Thomas Traumann, presidential spokesman, told reporters in Addis Ababa.

"Almost all (aid) is cancellation," Traumann said.

Among the 12 countries whose debts were pardoned, Congo-Brazzaville was the highest with a $352m debt cancelled, with Tanzania's $237m debt the second largest.

Traumann said the move was part of Brazil's efforts to boost economic ties with Africa, home to some of the world's fastest growing economies.

He added that Brazil recently established an agency to support investments in industry and development in Africa and Latin America.

Signing agreements

Rousseff has met with several African leaders, including Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, with whom she signed a series of cooperation agreements on agriculture, education, air transport and science.

Brazil's interest in Africa is part of a larger trend boosting so-called South-South cooperation, which has attracted investment from emergent economies in developing countries, namely in Africa.

Brazil, one of five members of the BRICS emerging nations group and with a GDP of $2.425tn in 2012, is the world's seventh largest economy.

The BRICs countries - comprising Brazil, China, India and Russia - are now Africa's largest trading partners and its biggest new group of investors. BRICS-Africa trade is seen eclipsing $500bn by 2015, according to Standard Bank.

Traumann said most of Brazil's future assistance would target infrastructure, agricultural and social programmes.

"Brazil has great expertise in what we call tropicalising European crops. We have that technology," he said. "The idea is how to transfer that technology from Brazil to other African countries."

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/05/20135266630421645.html

naijacutee: Millions? Ok!

Yes many will lose millions.

Mods better make this FP. A lot of Nlers would lose millions in this.

Arthur Budovsky Belanchuk, 39, on Friday was arrested in Spain as part of a money laundering investigation performed jointly by police agencies in the United States and Costa Rica.

Costa Rican prosecutor José Pablo González said Budovsky, a Costa Rican citizen of Ukrainian origin, has been under investigation since 2011 for money laundering using a company he created in the country called Liberty Reserve.

Local investigations began after a request from a prosecutor’s office in New York. On Friday, San José prosecutors conducted raids in Budovsky's house and offices in Escazá, Santa Ana, southwest of San José, and in the province of Heredia, north of the capital.

Budovsky's businesses in Costa Rica apparently were financed by using money from child pornography websites and drug trafficking.

New York conviction

According to records from the U.S. Justice Department, on July 27, 2006, Budovsky and a partner identified as Vladimir Kats were indicted by the state of New York on charges of operating an illegal financial business, GoldAge Inc., from their Brooklyn apartments.

They had transmitted at least $30 million to digital currency accounts worldwide since beginning operations in 2002.

The digital currency exchange, GoldAge, received and transmitted $4 million between Jan. 1, 2006, and June 30, 2006, as part of the money laundering scheme.

Customers opened online GoldAge accounts with limited documentation of identity, then GoldAge purchased digital gold currency through those accounts; the defendants' fees sometimes exceeded $100,000.

Customers could choose their method of payment to GoldAge: wire remittances, cash deposits, postal money orders or checks.

Finally, the customers could withdraw the money by requesting wire transfers to accounts anywhere in the world or by having checks sent to any identified individual.

Budovsky and Kats were sentenced to five years in prison for engaging in the business of transmitting money without a license, a felony violation of state banking law, but got probation.


Source: http://www.ticotimes.net/More-news/News-Briefs/Costa-Rican-arrested-in-Spain-for-alleged-financial-crimes_Friday-May-24-2013

number not working.

Two Nigerians have been sentenced to seven years in prison over the deaths of at least 80 children who took adulterated teething medicine.

The officials from the company which made the My Pikin syrup were found guilty by a court in Lagos.

After children started dying in 2008, the mixture was found to contain engine coolant.

The judge also ordered that the company be closed and its assets forfeited to the state.

The paracetamol-based syrup, used for treating sore gums, was found to have been contaminated with diethylene glycol, used as an engine coolant.

It caused the babies' kidneys to fail.

My Pikin means "my baby" in Nigerian pidgin, the language widely used in Lagos.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22574689

Just called my contacts in the Security there and no such thing is happening. Everybody is moving about their normal biz.

Front page please

Researchers working in a Canadian mine – 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) below Earth’s surface – have tapped a source of water that they say has been isolated for at least a billion years. This research was published the journal Nature yesterday (May 15, 2013) and has already fascinated people around the world. Geologist Chris Ballentine, a member of the research team, pointed out that the findings are “doubly interesting” because the water carries the ingredients necessary to support life. He said the isolated water provides:

… secluded biomes, ecosystems, in which life, you can speculate, might have even originated.

These researchers say they don’t know yet if anything is living in the ancient water, but they have measured high levels of methane and hydrogen in it, which are good ingredients for supporting life.

Ballentine, a geologist at the University of Manchester, UK, and his team carefully captured water flowing through fractures in 2.7-billion-year-old sulphide deposits in a copper and zinc mine near Timmins, Ontario. They used special techniques to ensure that the water didn’t come into contact with the air. They determined that the water couldn’t have contacted Earth’s atmosphere — and so hasn’t been at the planet’s surface — for at least 1 billion years, and possibly for as long as 2.64 billion years, not long after the rocks it flows through formed.

Previously, micrometer-scale pockets in minerals billions of years old have been found to hold water that was trapped during the minerals’ formation. But no source of free-flowing water passing through interconnected cracks or pores in Earth’s crust has previously been shown to have stayed isolated for more than tens of millions of years.

Other scientists examining the evidence by Ballentine and his team have already begun to confirm their results. At least one called the isotopic compositions seen in samples drawn from the mine “extremely strange.”

Ballentine and his colleagues are now working to establish whether the water does harbour life.

Bottom line: Researchers including geologist Chris Ballentine of the University of Manchester in the UK have captured and analyzed samples of water from a mine in Ontario. The samples might have been out of contact with Earth’s atmosphere for over one billion years.

Source: http://earthsky.org/earth/billion-year-old-water-found-in-reservoir-under-ontario

A Toyota Corolla packed with explosives rammed a pair of American military vehicles in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Thursday, setting off a blast that killed at least 16 people, including 6 American military advisers, and shook the relative calm that has prevailed for months in the city, Afghan officials said.

Afghan police officers stood guard on Thursday at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul.

The explosion was powerful enough to rattle windows across Kabul. It left bodies strewed along the street and one of the American vehicles — an armored Chevrolet Suburban that weighed nearly five tons — lying in ruins more than 30 feet from the blast site.

Hezb-i-Islami, a relatively small insurgent faction that often competes with the Taliban for influence, claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded more than three dozen Afghans. Haroon Zarghon, the group’s spokesman, reached by telephone in Pakistan, said the bombing was carried out by a 24-year-old man who had grown up south of Kabul.

More attacks against Americans will come soon, Mr. Zarghon added, saying that Hezb-i-Islami was dismayed by the current talks between Afghanistan and the United States about a long-term security deal under which thousands of American soldiers could be based in Afghanistan for years to come.

“When Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan realized that American invaders have the devil intention of staying in Afghanistan, we decided to step up our attack on Americans in Afghanistan,” he said.

Whether Hezb-i-Islami — or the Taliban, for that matter — can regularly strike Americans in Kabul remains to be seen. Thursday’s bombing was the first significant attack in months on a Western target in Kabul, despite repeated efforts by insurgents to carry out a major strike in the city.

According to Afghan and American officials, the insurgents have found their efforts stymied by the myriad layers of security that protect Kabul, from street-level police officers staffing checkpoints to Afghan and foreign Special Operations soldiers raiding homes and businesses nearly every night.

The aftermath of Thursday’s bombing, though, provided a gory reminder of the war that still grips much of Afghanistan, and of the fact that only so much can be done to keep it from spilling over into Kabul, especially when the insurgents easily blend into the population.

The car bomber’s vehicle, a white Corolla, is probably the most commonly seen car in Afghanistan, and the driver shot out of a side street, a fairly standard maneuver on Kabul’s chaotic and crowded roads. It is likely that the Americans who were targeted had little or no time to react once the threat became apparent, if they were able to spot it at all.

The explosion left a deep crater in the road and cracks in the mud-brick shops that line the street. One of the two American Suburbans was reduced to a mangled heap of charred metal, while the other was launched into the air and blown down the street.

Human remains and bits of metal and plastic and other material from the cars were scattered for hundreds of feet around the site of the attack. Blown-apart ration packets carried by soldiers could be seen, along with a partly burned iPhone.

The United States-led coalition, in a brief statement, said two service members and four contractors had been killed. It did not specify their nationalities, though Afghan officials said they were all Americans.

One witness, a man in his 40s who lives near where the explosives went off but would not give his name, said he was having breakfast with his family “when we heard a really loud boom, and then there was a fireball.” He added: “Our entire house was engulfed by smoke and dust. Glasses shattered, windows broke. Suddenly the daylight turned to darkness.”

He said he ran out to see a large generator outside an Afghan bank branch in flames and bodies littering the street. “Some bleeding, some with missing limbs, some black like coal,” he said, calling it a “dreadful scene.”

Capt. Faizullah, an Afghan Army commander at the scene, said an Afghan interpreter for the coalition had been killed along with the American advisers. The Americans worked with the intelligence department of the Defense Ministry, which is about half a mile from the scene of the attack, said Captain Faizullah, who, like many Afghans, uses a single name.

Kanishka Baktash, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the blast also killed nine Afghan civilians. Many of their bodies were burned beyond recognition.

The attack was one of the deadliest this year against coalition forces. Foreign casualties have dropped off sharply in recent months, with Afghan forces taking on a greater front-line role and the coalition pulling back ahead of 2014, when NATO’s combat mission here is to end.

Hezb-i-Islami, the group that said it was behind Thursday’s attack, occupies a murky position in Afghanistan. It has a political wing that is among the most powerful factions in President Hamid Karzai’s government. Its militant wing has for years vied with the Taliban for influence in eastern Afghanistan and around Kabul, sometimes directly battling the other insurgents — and, on occasion, aiding Afghan and coalition forces against the Taliban.

But it also remains an active insurgent group. It previously claimed responsibility for a car bombing in Kabul in September. That attack targeted a minibus carrying flight crew members for planes contracted to fly for the United States Agency for International Development, the American government’s aid and development arm.


source: http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/1-front-top-news/119873-kabul-suicide-bombing-of-nato-convoy-kills-14.html

Milos Zeman makes no secret of his drinking. But on this occasion — a rare and highly-ceremonial public display of the Czech crown jewels last week — his office insisted he simply had a virus and subsequently needed a day or two of rest.

Since then, the video has prompted a storm of social media gags. Czechs — by far the biggest beer drinkers in the world per capita — have been posting pictures of themselves in bars getting drunk with slogans like, 'Here I am getting a virus,' or 'Heading out for a virus.'

Zeman, 68, a chain smoker and lover of fatty foods, often extols the virtues of booze. On one occasion, he praised Winston Churchill for his love of whisky and pointed out that Adolf Hitler was a teetotaler and vegetarian — "and you know how he ended up."

During a 1996 election campaign Zeman said his campaign bus "drove on gas and Becherovka," a popular Czech liquor. Two years later he became prime minister.

And a tabloid in the Czech Republic once claimed he told the paper he would drink on average six glasses of wine — plus three shots — on any given day.

His unsuccessful rival in this year's presidential election, the nobleman Karel Schwarzenberg, couldn't help but take a swipe at his opponent's taste for alcohol.

"Milos Zeman was in my opinion one of the most intelligent prime ministers this country has ever had," Schwarzenberg said during the campaign, "and had he not drunk so much he'd have been a really good prime minister."

Zeman insists he's so used to drinking that it never has any ill effects, and he has openly challenged anyone to prove otherwise. "If anyone has ever seen me drunk in my life, tell me when," he said during the presidential election campaign.

Miroslava Nemcova, the speaker for Parliament's lower house and one of seven holders of the keys to the Czech crown jewels, was the only person at last week's event to comment on Zeman's appearance.

"I saw what you saw," she was quoted as saying on the Lidove Noviny daily's website Friday. "Judge for yourself."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/05/14/

serves them right.

Good one baba. Most of the other politicians needs to learn a thing or two from this Man. I cant stop admiring him.

Point of Order: I didn't get the help from this Forum. The guy that dropped his number couldn't help either, he was just giving me advise.

You guys are saying same thing. Informative threads like this should be made fp.

Thanks for everybody that contributed. I have been able to unmask the hidden number- I know nothing is impossible when money is involved in this country. The Number is unrecognized, I guess the number was activated for this purpose only. Do anybody have access to the NCC records? any help here? Reply pls.

front page tinz. I wonder if her sister is one of d mods here

emmydeep: Thats a part of my job. Call me tommorow. 07034551515.

pick ur phone, u know my number. Lets talk

Thanks for the wonderful contributions coming from different angles. I know you all want to help.

I didnt open this thread to attract attention or sympathy, I believe that some people's post may be misguided if they dont understand the base of my cry for help.

I have been married to my wonderful wife for 4yrs+, dated her 2 years before walkin down the aislep and I can comfortably tell you that I have not cheated on her since I married her. I am also not the sort of man that runs around with girls before I was married therefore have not ever promised any other girl marriage before I married- besides if that was the case why should the perpetrator wait 4yrs+ to launch her attack- see that does'nt make sense.

The Stuff started last month when I traveled, hidden number different voices started calling her, telling her all sort of things. Unprintable things about me. She kept malice for a while till she found out and discovered that everything they said about me were all lies. That was when she confessed to me that some people has been calling her with all sort of Lies about my whereabout. I am a business man, I travel a lot, before some nit-wits jump on me now, Yes I do take care of my wife and Kids and am always there for them, Vacations e.t.c is always a necessity in my home.


When she found out she was been conned, like they told her I have another family in the west. She found out all was lies so she stopped co-operating with the miscreants who now turned dirty and has been disturbing her phones since all this while.

I dont know who is responsible for this, I never cheated and I trust her also. She cannot cheat on me. I want to find out who is behind this. This is pure Jealousy and I want to find out if is a family thing or just friends who are Jealous for my success.

Please I need people who have practical answers to my problem as It can happen to anybody.

Thanks

emmydeep: Thats a part of my job. Call me tommorow. 07034551515.

Thanks I will contact you.

Someone has been issuing threats on phone to my wife recently with a hidden number, please fellow Nlers help me. whats the best way ethical/unethical to unmask the callers identity. Please. I dont mind paying for this service. Please

timpaker:

Jay-z ke? That's his grand daddy, his name is Jay-x, he was a soldier at the American - Vietnam war. He was taken from Senegal during the slave era that explains why he's got a big nose.

Funny U. Jay-X father of Jay Y who later begat Jay-Z. Genius indeed.

Dyt: The guy no get visa na

lol I guess you are joking.

Firstly, you shouldn't think of sea travel as a way to beat an air fare - it isn't. Unlike flying, it can be a richly rewarding experience. You should expect to pay a minimum of about $1,500 per person each way, depending on the route and the cabin.

Sea travel is only cheaper than flying when you consider the many days you will spend on board (which has to be compared to a hotel stay ashore) with three full meals a day and a private cabin. And drinks on board cargo ships are not only tax and duty free, but also profit free (what is call bonded stock).


You can search for Lucan Travel cruise line and write them an Email.

Weird Pix but entertaining all the same... so long as they dont cross boundaries.

AliKano: I was interested to know what some Nigerians think about the Lebanese living in Nigeria and I don't seem to understand why a lot of people here generalise. Lets get some facts straight. According to this article there are 20,000 Lebanese here and Nigeria has a population of over 150 million. Compare that with Nigerians working in Lebanon which by some estimate is around 20,000 and Lebanon has a population of over 4 Million only. Most Lebanese people living in Nigeria today have been born here or raised here and feel more at home here than in Lebanon. We respect our fellow Nigerians but to be fair there are some Lebanese and expats that treat Nigerians unfairly. However there are more Nigerians that treat Nigerians unfairly. I too would be frustrated if a foreigner comes to my country and reaps the wealth and then abuses it but those are a handful that are insignificant. There are wicked people all over this world, from every nation, Race, religion and so on. Do not generalise.
I do more as a person to support the Nigerian Economy that some wealthy Nigerians. I try to buy everything made in Nigeria to support local industry. I only employ Nigerians with salaries higher than the industry I am in. I befriend my staff and know every aspect of their lives. Please dont come and judge me or others like me. Its about time you take that negative mind set out of your heads and realise that you are not better than us and we are not better than you. Afterall we are all struggling in the current world economical crisis.

word

What sort of immunity is accorded to the holders of such National honors if any?

The Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, yesterday called on the Federal Government to correct its misconception about the mass media as the world celebrates the 2013 Press Freedom Day today.

The United Nations set aside every May 3 as World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness on the importance of freedom of expression.

In a statement in Lagos, the NGE said that successive administrations in Nigeria had treated the media with suspicion, instead of regarding it as an ally in national development.

The statement by the President of the guild, Mr Femi Adesina, noted that Nigeria’s robust and vibrant media had a history of commitment to noble causes, and played key roles in the struggle for independence, democratic rule, social justice and human rights.

“Today, the media is still in the vanguard of upholding all that is noble, just, fair and would rebound to the progress of the nation,” it stated.

It regretted that recent developments had reinforced the uneasy relationship that often existed between the Federal Government and the media.

“We urge the government to resist anything that might bear the slightest semblance to a curtailment of the freedom of the press. The media parades professionals, who are passionate and committed to the growth and development of the country on all fronts, and they do not deserve to be hounded, repressed or harassed.

“If there are inadvertent infractions of the rules, we expect nothing but the strictest form of conformity to due process and the rule of law in addressing such,” it said.

The guild also said that the Nigerian media was groaning under high cost of production inputs, and appealed to the government to use the opportunity of the Day to appraise how it could make life easier for the media.

It pledged that Nigerian editors would continue to give their best to engender cohesion and harmony in the polity.

“We will always uphold socially responsible acts and practices, and play to the hilt, our roles as partners in progress toward building a country where no man is oppressed, intimidated or harassed. Free press means free expression, and our country needs such to develop and hold its own in the comity of nations.

“The line between press freedom and repression is quite thin, and eternal vigilance is needed at all times,” it added.

culled from http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/05/press-freedom-day-editors-want-govts-to-correct-misconception-of-media/

Nearly 260,000 people died during the famine that hit Somalia from 2010 to 2012, a study shows.

Half of them were children under the age of five, says the report by the UN and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net).

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said humanitarian aid needed to be provided more quickly.

The crisis was caused by a severe drought, worsened by conflict between rival groups fighting for power.

The number of deaths was higher than the estimated 220,000 people who died during the 1992 famine.
Western aid group ban

Rudi Van Aaken, the deputy head of the FAO operation for Somalia, told the BBC that the response had been too slow.

"I think the main lesson learned is that the humanitarian community should be ready to take early action - respond early on."

"Responding only when the famine is declared is very very ineffective. Actually about half of the casualties were there before the famine was already declared."

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22380352